Black frustrations

Obama in the White House creates strange consequences

February 24, 2010

Politics has strange consequences. Few are stranger than those of racial politics. The jobs bill pending in Congress offers an excellent example.

Imagine, for example, the Revs. Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton during previous economic downturns. By now, a pending employment bill might well have stirred marches and demands by black community leaders for special aid to communities hard hit by the recession. But not this time. As much as Barack Obama's presidency has stirred anger on the right, it has brought a new patience to activists on the left. Black leaders still want the nation's first black president to pay attention to black issues, but they don't want to be perceived as getting in his way.

Few outside of black-oriented media noted the three black men who trudged to the White House through blizzardlike wind and snow to meet with Obama in mid-February. Sharpton, Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, and Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP, met with Obama for about an hour to talk about black unemployment.

"We're not looking for race-based (jobs) programs," Sharpton said afterward, "but, like the president, we want to make sure that everyone is included."

That's fine with Obama, who ever since his early campaign days has emphasized a colorblind approach to issues like jobs and poverty. Help everyone equitably, he has insisted, and African-Americans will be helped too. Yet, fashioning colorblind solutions to unemployment is a tough task when the problem has a distinctly color-coded composition.

For example, when the overall unemployment rate eased slightly to 9.7 percent from 10 percent in January, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Team Obama must have breathed a guarded sigh of relief. But Ohio State University's Kirwan Institute, which studies the recession's impact on African-Americans, found black unemployment actually had gone up three-tenths of a percent — to 16.5 percent.

The 43-member Congressional Black Caucus briefly withheld their votes from a financial services bill in December to express their frustration at the lack of attention being devoted to joblessness, mortgage foreclosures and other ills in their communities. But when the House passed its $154 billion jobs bill in December, left out was the caucus's request to direct 10 percent of the funding to low-income communities.

John Powell, Kirwan Institute's executive director, expressed hope that this measure and others targeted toward the neediest communities would be restored to the final bill, despite "pushback" by those who say they want a more "universal" approach. "We should have universal goals" toward employment, he argued, "but targeted strategies."

Yet, among black America's prominent public intellectuals, only Georgetown's Michael Eric Dyson has had enough audacity to declare "Obama runs from race like a black man runs from a cop." If anything, Obama actually runs from race like a black politician who is looking to avoid a potential white conservative backlash.

Another consequence of Washington's changed racial landscape is a higher profile and new level of accountability for black organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus. An embarrassing follow-the-money New York Times investigation of the organization's finances has raised serious questions about how well the caucus and its various charities are serving their constituents. Yet caucus leaders have been less forthcoming than a Tiger Woods news conference.

Taking advantage of political finance laws that its members help to write, the CBC's network of nonprofit groups and charities has become a fundraising powerhouse. Yet the Times found it spends much of that cash on lavish galas, golf outings and conventions than on scholarships and other badly needed public services.

Worse, a huge share of the caucus's donations come from companies that produce the sort of products that the lawmakers write laws to regulate, including tobacco, liquor, "early paycheck" loans, "rent-to-own" furniture stores and other products that have a controversial impact on poor, black neighborhoods.

In a statement, Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat who chairs the caucus, called the Times story unfair but did not ask for a correction. More than a week after the Valentine's Day report, attempts by journalists to get further answers have not been unsuccessful.

If anything, the caucus and its foundation have been exposed for engaging in ethical conflicts, real or apparent, that no one seemed to care about in the years when black congressmen and the occasional black senator were the only visible black power in Washington. Times have changed. With a black president in the White House, the caucus gains real clout. When questions are raised about the caucus's ethics and priorities, its members need to give some real answers.

Clarence Page is a member of the Tribune's editorial board and blogs at chicagotribune.com/pagespage